


Sixty years apart

by TerresDeBrume



Series: SEADLA Verse [6]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-04
Updated: 2013-02-04
Packaged: 2017-11-28 05:07:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/670606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TerresDeBrume/pseuds/TerresDeBrume
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve tries and tries and tries, but no matter what he does it seems he and Tony will never cease to be sixty years away from each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sixty years apart

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place between the prologue of SEADLA and chapter one of this fic, when they learn about Tony's suicide attempt.

The thing about Tony is that he’s so much more like Howard than he would like to hear.

He has the same assurance, the same brilliant mind, the same awareness of his abilities, the same arrogance, too, a lot of the time. He flirts just as easily as Bucky ever did, just as smooth as Howard, with a little bit of Tony on top that makes it even more efficient and… well, it is possible that Steve is a little bit jealous of him. Just a bit.

 

It’s difficult for him to like Tony.

Not that Tony isn’t likeable in the first place, it’s just that he has this asshole thing going on and it’s difficult to get a glimpse of the good man underneath… Steve doesn’t like that. He doesn’t get why Tony has to be an asshole to everybody around him when he could be so much nicer, so much easier to live with! He tried to tell him that, too, but then Tony is also a ticking bomb.

It’s not easy to connect to the others either, because they have all this… baggage, that Steve doesn’t share. He doesn’t know who Oprah Winfrey is, he can’t quite wrap his head around the fact that astronauts can use the internet from where they are, he struggles with his cell phone. He missed over sixty four years of evolution and history, and while he does understand most of them in theory, he still finds it surprising to see colored people use the same public bathroom as he does and their children mingling with white kids. It’s a pleasant surprise, probably his favorite thing of this new world he lives in, but a surprise nonetheless, and it shouldn’t be.

He tried to bond with Thor over it at first, when they were both learning how to cook rice, but Thor is a faster learner than Steve is. He has no problem using current technology anymore, and what he doesn’t understand by himself, he tends to research in the internet… only, Thor may be very good at learning, but he’s not very good at waiting for others to learn, or even at teaching him. Steve kind of suspects Loki must be a fast learner, too. That would explain why Thor keeps apologizing because ‘he never had that problem before’.

 

Steve is stuck sixty-five years behind the world, and there is nobody he can talk to about that, least of all Tony… and then, would he want to?

Tony has so many of his father’s traits, Steve feels, and mainly the bad ones. Of course, he didn’t know Howard all that long, but it was enough to realize the man didn’t care much about things beyond his own success and comfort, and there’s so much of that in Tony that Steve can’t reconcile it with the man who was willing to die to save his planet.

 

Maybe it’s why he doesn’t believe the news, at first.

 

“No,” he says, and it’s like his mind is screaming, spreading it in every fiber of his body –it almost reminds him of the serum again.

 

On the other side of the table, Thor is being very quiet, eyes strained on his hands and a deep frown on his face, as if trying to solve a very difficult puzzle. Natasha’s lips are pinched in a tight, tight line and haven’t moved since Fury told them about the news… she did Tony’s psychological profile, Steve recalls belatedly. She was the one supposed to tell the others what was going on in Tony’s mind, and if she didn’t see that… but no. No, Tony can’t be… no.

 

“I don’t believe you. He’d never do that.”

 

Bruce, alone in the seat closest to the door, seems to have shrunken, as if trying to disappear between the cushions, his face pale and his knuckles white where he clutches the table, and Steve finds himself hoping he’s not going to Hulk out, because that is the last thing they need right now.

 

“I think,” Bruce says in a strained voice, “you should probably reconsider what you think is or isn’t true about Tony… after all, as Director Fury just told us, he did.”

 

Bruce shoots Fury a look that says exactly what he thinks about his trustworthiness, then gets to his feet and leaves the room. Thor watches him go before following his example in complete silence, and it doesn’t take long before Steve is alone in the conference room, wondering what on earth just happened.

 

**{ooo}**

 

It’s funny but the smell of hospitals has never bothered him.

He met a number of people who have had to be in hospitals often as children, even as adults, and a lot of them have problems with that smell but, usually, Steve doesn’t. Only today it’s different. It’s not that he’s had a turnaround and started resenting it, but the clinginess of it means he can’t forget what he is here for and that is  _not_ something he feels grateful for.

 

Probably the most disturbing thing about this scene is Tony’s stillness. It’s not the first time Steve saw him in a hospital room, or bandaged, but usually he moves, squirms, flirts, protests against the rest doctors try to enforce on him, berates Pepper for her participation in that. Yet now he lies still, face too pale in the pristine bed sheets, and Steve is always reminded of a shroud.

It’s not normal. It’s not natural for Tony to stop, not for so long, not ever. If Steve had to designate one person as the incarnation of movement, he would pick Tony right then and there, but now here he is, with an IV in his arm and cuts on his wrists, and Steve tries to think of a reason why Tony would do that but he keeps falling short. Tony has friend, a family even, if you count his robots, he has wealth and hobbies and occupations and responsibilities, why on earth would he do that? Why  _on earth_  would he do  _that_?

 

“You should have talked to us,” Steve mutters, “If you have a problem you come to us, that’s how friends work!”

“Brothers, too,” Thor says beside him, and Steve jumps: he did not hear the God enter. He thought that was impossible. “But I wonder if it is even possible for them to see this.”

 

Thor’s shoulders slump, and it seems to Steve they’re saying ‘I wonder if  _I_  ever made it possible’. Steve sort of wants to comfort him. Thor hasn’t been himself since they learned about Tony’s stupid mistake two days ago… he’s been silent and broody, and the sky over New York has been grey with promises of a rain that never falls. It plays on everyone’s mood, Steve knows, and he hopes the weather goes back to normal soon, that they may go back to living and hoping for Tony rather than always fear the worse.

But Thor doesn’t move, and Steve’s fingers stop halfway between them, afraid he’ll say the wrong thing, convey the wrong expression.

 

They stand vigil together for a long, long time, greeting Bruce and Pepper and Rhodey with gaunt faces and absent nods, but when the weather lifts and Tony wakes, Steve doesn’t recognize his relief in Thor’s eyes.

 

(Later, Tony screams and cuts at him with all the talent of a born orator, and Steve can’t quite silence the little part of him wondering if Tony’s moment of suicidal folly was really a byproduct of something external, or if it’s always been there and he failed to see it.)


End file.
